Coaching, nudging, influencing: A new paradigm for growing people and for creating wealth and values-Part 2(6): The Coach is a creator of value

Charles Hampden-Turner

Part 2(6): The Coach is a creator of value: A Guarantor of integrity

This instalment details how the coach is a creator of value and a guarantor of integrity. By reconciling opposing values, new value can be found. A coach must be able to find virtue through the reconciliation of values and find the equilibrium between opposites to train people and grow wealth. This section discusses how this should be done and illustrates several examples of why the dilemma reconciliation approach is the most valuable tool at a coach’s disposal.

Figure-ground relationships 

One way we can express values is as figure-ground relationships. This is illustrated above. Values have integrity so long as the two form a whole, a figure against a background, a frame around a picture, a text within a context. There can be no good without evil since these are contrasts, no You without Me, no Teach without Learn. It takes both. Values can take it in turns to move to the fore and to the back. So that if I put You first, you may return the favour to Me. What I Learn now I can Teach later. If I wait by a traffic light the Red may feature against a background of Green and Yellow, before Green features before a background of Red and Yellow. The process is both circular and moves by turns from front to back. Values signal differences on a continuum. Note that contrasting values contain and constrain one another. Because of You, the assertion of Me will be kept within bounds. What I can Teach is limited and is constrained by what I have first Learned.

It is important that values remain within the context of their contrasting values or they may cause mayhem. We will be distinguishing between values as end states and meta-values, which tell us how values relate to each other. We will examine a Frisbee as a useful metaphor or analogy. We will cite a series of reconciled values and the “flow experience” these occasion. We will distinguish values from meta-values and show how absolute values get unhinged. We will consider the traffic light as a value system of universal adoption, look at the perils of adversarial relationships and examine theories of sequential levels of value synthesis and development.  

True virtue lies in reconciled opposites: Vice is disorder between

A major theme of this presentation is that virtue lies not in values so much as between them. It is how a value relates to its contrast which decides whether or not it is pathological. Above we see that rules can learn from exceptions how to protect and help the development of more and more people, even those who are diverse. This is true of scientific rules making sense of data or of rules made by a legislature regulating the conduct of people. The elegantly dancing snakes at top right, a symbol of healing among other things, show that rules allow and encourage people to be exceptional, which is what most of them want. The fiercely writhing snakes at bottom left, show what happens when rules rob people of self-expression so that they protest the rules but those who police the rules then feel that law and order is threatened so that they try to crush those who take exception to the extant order. But once you start fearing and impeding all those who point out exceptions, then rules get more and more oppressive and out of touch with the populace they are supposed to serve, while the populace may defy all rules, even wise ones, in their rage against the current order and anarchy threatens. When we start moralizing, conservatives generally insist on upholding rules, while liberals urge that exceptions and concessions be made to made to protestors who would not be so angry but for the war in Vietnam, Iraq etc. Both sides are right in the sense that no society without laws will work, nor will any society that fails to allow exceptions to be voiced and rules to be modified accordingly. No rules are universally true for ever more, and no protester is unambiguously on the side of life. We have to have a dialogue and nations like Syria who cannot tolerate or discuss dissent find themselves immiserated and resemble our mutually murderous serpents above. The end comes with neither a bang nor a wiper but with eternal verities upon a centrifuge, spinning savagely apart and justified by the “extremity” of the other. We need to coach one another

Skills & challenges are values that fuse and transcend

One of the greatest betrayals by teachers of students in our life-times is giving up on the task of giving value judgments a descriptive and scientific meaning. Our contemporaries taught that you cannot get an “ought” from an “is”, that value judgements are “exclamations of preference without any testable meaning” and should be left to clergymen and politicians. They were as intellectually significant as the taste-buds on our tongues. It is true of course that value judgements which ascribe all problems to human sinfulness do not get us very far towards solutions. Moralizing is too often an inhibitor of thought. But that we left students to confront the war in Vietnam without scholarly assistance casts shame upon us. Analytic philosophy chopped values into pieces and then pronounced them dead. True value lies in contrasts being fused and opposites transcended. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi researched life-long into human happiness. He found that this occurred when values suddenly flowed into one another. Take a work-team that has to solve a problem. This constitutes a CHALLENGE, see the vertical dimension. To this problem the team brings a degree of SKILL, lateral dimension. Much of this is inside the members and needs to be elicited from each member by fellow members. The fear is that the Challenge will be greater than the Skill, leading to Anxiety (top left). Alternatively the Skill may be much greater than the Challenge leading to Boredom (bottom right) But true value and great happiness results when the two flow together in a whoosh of joy, literally a “solution” as their permeable borders collapse in a flow experience. The challenge has evoked the skills and the skills the challenges, as each value transcends its contrasting value in an intellectual-emotional surge of satisfaction. But it is fleeting and vanishes as mysteriously as it came upon us, leaving us still bemused. If we can coach skills until they meet challenges we have triumphed.

Values and Meta-values: Liberty and Fraternity weighed Equally 

We owe to Charles Handy the insight that Liberty, Equality and Fraternity are not the contradictory muddle of values that is often claimed. How can Liberty co-exist with Equality when people are so very unequal in their attainments? Those advocating equality are accused of wishing to reduce us all to an indistinguishable mass. Those advocating liberty are accused of defending the right to subordinate and oppress other people and so diminishing both fraternity and equality. Many conclude that these values have been simply thrown at us with no chance of cohesion or integrity. It helps to distinguish values from meta-values. Meta means “about”, so that Equality as meta-value is about other values. Above we see Liberty and Fraternity weighed Equally. The case for Equality is not that we are all the same but that if we exercise the Liberty to be different we need Fraternal relations in which these differences must be weighed equally to see which is best for particular situations. Even if someone is brilliant at mathematics compared to his sister, her skill at first-aid could save his life in an accident. We need to weigh these very different abilities equally to give each her/his due and to see that both are put to work in ways where each can excel and be fulfilled. So far from equality demanding human homogeneity, it promotes human diversity and incomparability and promises an end to invidious distinctions. One of the gifts of fraternity is to allow each sister/brother as much liberty as possible. 

Reconciling Self and Other, egoism and altruism 

Coaching is the reconciliation of Self and Other. Here is an illustration of how egoism and altruism work together. Many of us are familiar with the warning by airline companies that should the cabin suffer decompression oxygen masks will fall from the ceiling. We are urged to fasten our own masks first and then attend to a child travelling with us. In short, first make sure you can breathe yourself and then assist others needing help. The point, of course, is to save both of you. (see the top right picture). It is not that your life in more important than anyone else’s – most parents would disagree –it is that a fully functioning adult must take charge of the situation and if s/he cannot, both may perish. Not being able to breathe may disable you from assisting your child. Self-sacrifice (bottom right) could deprive the child of her father and threaten her life too, besides making the plane almost impossible to evacuate.  Altruism has broken apart from Egoism to produce Self-sacrifice. Egoism broken apart from Altruism to produce a Selfishness that could kill the child (top left). The two values are in a state of synergy or integrity at top right. The swift sequence of actions is pragmatic. We can best take care of others when we have ensured we are fully equipped. When someone does you a favour you do not want to hear what that person had to sacrifice, hence all the jokes about Jewish mothers! We too often assume that someone who has been killed defending the country has laid down his life for his friends, through “greater love.” Just ten minutes in a barrack room should cure us of such hyperbole! Aristotle was closer to the mark when he defined good luck as the arrow striking the man next to you. Brave people risk their lives and misfortune takes lives those lives away. If they want to die they may be fanatics and too cowardly the face the world as it is. When we coach we put values together.        

Courage & Caution: Recklessness & Cowardice

Here we are coaching life-guards in saving life and considering the contrasting values. The illustration above shows the dilemma faced by any life-guard on a beach. The record of coming to the aid of a drowning person is pretty dismal. Almost one third of the untrained perish in the attempt so that two people not one drown. A near-drowning person will cling to you and drag you under the water with him. His desperate strength is ferocious. Going to his rescue unprepared is not courageous but reckless (top left), the name for courage which has lost touch with any caution. Similarly if the life guard merely throws a belt from the safety of the shore this is not cautious but cowardly (bottom right) His caution has lost touch with his courage. American life-saving drill has an axiom, first Row, your boat towards the person, then Throw, the life-belt towards that person, and only if both these tactics are unavailing do you Go into the water yourself. This should be a last resort. In short, Courage and Caution are finely joined and integrated and you may need both to effect a successful rescue. One value without the other could prove lethal. The desire to be a hero must be resisted. Most life-saving is prosaic and ensures that your would-be rescuer survives. He or she are trained to break a death-grip on their bodies and bring the victim safely to shore. Once again we see that vice and virtue are describable and are NOT “exclamations of preference” like the meaningless taste buds on our tongues. It is high time these descriptions were taught. Once again to coach is to fuse values into one integrity and endure the tension between them.   

Diversity by itself is not a virtue. Indeed it can be positively dangerous. Where diverse people are not also included in the culture, they are likely to be marginalized, persecuted and even annihilated. The idea that diversity on its own is “good” needs critical re-examination. Research by Joseph DiStephano and Martha Maznevski shows that diversity in the membership of a team is a risk leading to both gains and losses. Diverse teams do much worse and much better than homogenous teams depending on the quality of coaching & management. In the picture above we see that homogenous teams (left) do passable if not spectacular work. They are unlikely to engage in serious conflict so similar are their values and commuication among them is unikely to break down. However they are also less likely to be creative, since new ideas from unfamilar people are necessary for this to occur. If on the other hand you have a very diverse team then serious disagreement is more likely because of the distance between members, see bottom right. The team may even break up into angry factions and fail to come up with a viable solution. It takes social skills and high managerial competence to orchestrate a very diverse team so as to get full benefit from its rich variety of viewpoints. However if we want spectaclar results this is the only way. Private enterprise is a risk-reward equation. You make profits because you have born risks and getting diverse people to work with one another is yet another of these risks. We also need to be clear about different kinds of diversity. While it is self-evidently fair to include darker skinned members, women and ethnic minorities, their colour or gender or do not by themselves lead to creative excellence. Some minorities try to make up for their visible diversity by chronic comformity, as when women ape the macho conduct of men. We need a diversity of values and perspectives for excellence to arise. Different life experiences must be authentically expressed.

Solitary Appeals to Solidarity: The Me-too Movement 

Degree of diversity among team members

Albert Camus wrote the story of the dying artist who had painted his last magnificent canvass. He had signed it the right corner “Solitarism”. Except that some admirers of his work claimed it was “Solidarism”. (Both words are in French) There ensued an argument about what the famous artist had really meant and what he wanted to say with his signature. Was it the letter a “t” or a “d”? Had his paintbrush slipped? Camus was trying to get us to see that solitarism brought about by a lonely act of conscience leads to human solidarity. You stand for what you believe to be right, risking scorn, rejection, ridicule but then you suddenly find yourself leading a movement of those who suffered the same fate but never dared to defy the power of those with more authority. A recent example of this was the starlets and film stars assaulted by Harvey Weinstein, see picture on right. He had the power to make or break the career of the woman he groped. It was common knowledge that he did this and then paid hush-money but still no one would confront him. His response and that of his backers and lawyers could doom her career and any chances of a part in the movies he made. Yet once a stand was made by Asia Argento and others the Me-Too movement was born and the ranks of accusers were simply too large to ignore. The scales tipped decisively against him. Incidentally, it also works the other way around. Those close to their own families, their mothers especially, are more likely to refuse to torture a victim when ordered to do so by a fake scientist, feigning research on “the effect of pain on learning,” and who orders electric shocks be administered to a fake victim who writhes in pain and eventually pretends to pass out. Those refusing had much higher social skills and more stable human relationships.   

The Traffic Light as a Benign Rotation 

The traffic or stop light is one of culture’s most brilliant inventions and illustrates how contrasting values form a loop. It also illustrates how cultures borrow from nature. We have borrowed from the colour spectrum that exists in nature and chosen two colours far apart and most contrasting to stand for a crucial difference stop (red) and go (green). To the best of our knowledge it is used in every nation that has automobile traffic. What makes traffic controllable is the difference and the movement between red and green, not the colours per se. Values are dynamic. They move up and down or side to side over time. Were the traffic light to stick on red or green it would not simply be useless but positively lethal and would actually help to cause accidents. Those stuck behind red would lose patience and attempt to cross right into the path of those released by green! This is an interesting analogy with absolute, fundamentalist, unchanging values. The signal can also adapt to traffic flows. Where a minor road crosses a major, the minor gets a 15 second green and the major road a 90 second green or thereabouts. Good values must be fair to everyone. There is only one respect in which this illustration of values is unlike others in this book It is a machine and therefore dead. The red never gets any redder and the green never grows any greener. This does not apply to the living values in this book. The more profit you make for yourself the more you are able to help others prosper. The better and more humbly you serve your cause the more will that cause raise you up to a proud first place among your fellows. If you exercise your freedom well you will have discharged your responsibility. If you help Me I will help You in turn and in time.  

Dynamic Equilibrium: The Dance of Opposites  

Linda Putman, Wendy Smith, Marian Lewis and Michael L Tushman are among a number of academics who insist that creating wealth is paradoxical, with seemingly opposed values finely tuned to a peak of perfection. Innovation, especially, is highly challenging and consists of associating and connecting meaningfully what was not joined before and was hitherto far apart or even opposed. Paradoxical tensions are reconciled by management strategies and wealth is generated by such fusions. For example any viable globalism must engage with local differences, shareholders must engage with the stakeholders they need to run a business successfully. Where this engagement succeeds there will be more not less for shareholders to gain. We need to exploit but also to explore and find more opportunities. We need to grow long-term but avoid being floored by short-term crises. In the illustration above, the acrobatic contestants are competing with each other while cooperating to avoid collision and make a show of their coordination. Each is different and yet their performance is unified. The more dynamic one is, the harder it is to retain equilibrium yet the more spectacular is that feat and the more the audience marvels and pays, success is built on periodic failure followed by improvement. What we essentially have is a dance of opposites and it becomes essential to embrace both ends. Paradox is a lens for managing the conflict which naturally arises from different life-experiences and perceptions. Like the skateboarders above we need to avoid striking each other, yet this can only happen if we are fully engaged. We need both the clarity which comes from polarization and the ambiguity which comes from fusion. A useful vehicle for this is the narrative. All narratives move from crisis to crisis and would not be enjoyable unless they created excitement within us. Will the two protagonists above win the contest. Will the risks they take be rewarded. Will showing off doom them? Has the crowd thrilled by the spectacle and the danger really come to witness an accident?           

How Competition at IBM helped to spur Cooperation & raise sales

One author interviewed Tim Galwey some years ago. He is a consultant and author of The Hidden Game of Tennis and other works. This account comes from an interview he gave us about engaging IBM and its salesforce. IBM was proud and enthusiastic about its bi-annual sales contest in which its top sales person received a free holiday for self and family in Acapulco. Yet there were problems IBM wanted Tim to remedy. The same one or two sales persons were winning year after year. They never let on how they did it, lest someone beat them next time. Customers were complaining of hard-sell tactics and suspected (rightly) that the sales person had her/his own agenda. Newly trained employees were quitting in despair of getting near the contest winners. There were stress related symptoms among the sales force. Tim had been warned privately not to recommend any abandonment of the sales contest. It was an honoured tradition. The situation he found is illustrated at top left of the illustration above, “Hard sell all the way”. Winning ways were top secret. What Tim recommended was most ingenious and kept the sales contest in place while changing what it was about. In future he commended the prize should be given to the sales person who had learned most from customers during the previous six months. This could only be judged by presenting this information to the conference. The conference would vote on the most valuable presentation, see top right. All this changed the conduct of the sales force. In order to win the contest it had to listen to what the customer said, note it down (bottom right) and pass it on. The top sales persons still won most of the time but the remainder improved markedly and the scores were much closer than before. Overall sales rose by over 20%. It is incredibly more effective to listen and learn from the customer that it to try and pressure him into buying.  

Tasks and relationships: Hawthorne and the informal system